At a speech in Southwark May said it was now "time to move beyond the asbo", with simpler sanctions that were "rehabilitating and restorative rather than criminalising and coercive".

"These sanctions were too complex and bureaucratic," she went on. "There were too many of them, they were too time consuming and expensive, and they too often criminalised young people unnecessarily, acting as a conveyor belt to serious crime and prison."

Now, I’m all in favour of abolishing the Asbo, for the simple reason that they are authoritarian, gimmicky and ineffective, three adjectives one could apply to almost all of New Labour’s policies.

But, beside the tremendous injustices towards innocent eccentrics and the mentally ill, in the majority of cases the people receiving Asbos were committing actual crimes, and should have been treated as such. Asbos were given for burglary, repeated threatening behaviour and even serious violence – you should be sent down for such things, not given the underclass equivalent of a PhD after your name.

But it’s the Home Secretary's language that disturbs. “Criminalised young people unnecessarily” and "rehabilitating and restorative rather than criminalising and coercive" is pure Leftspeak.

If young people commit crimes, they are criminalising themselves; if the law wants to tackle crime, it must be criminalising and coercive. People aren’t going to voluntarily go to prison, after all.

This is just the latest case of Tories using the language of their opponents. First Ken Clarke made the ridiculous claim that “warehousing” people was “ineffectual” and something “you would expect of Victorian England”.

That’s a load of BS, and I don’t mean Big Society. The most undervalued minister of the last 20 years was Michael Howard, who understood this basic fact – prison would not solve society’s problems, nor would it make people nicer, but it would reduce crime. As a result the level of violent offences, which had been steadily rising since the 1960s, was stabilised. He got little thanks, but because of Michael Howard many people are alive today who would otherwise be dead.

He also said that taxpayers should fund comedy workshops and party nights for prisoners, a scheme that was banned following a Halloween night at Holloway in 2008, and the revelation that a “convicted terrorist was sent on an eight-day comedy workshop”. This latter story, by the way, is why I find it so hard to keep up with April’s Fools jokes in the media – when real life is this messed up, who’s to tell what's a joke?

I wasn’t personally so bothered about some convicts having the occasional party, nor even the al-Qaeda terrorist terrorist doing stand-up; he can't possible be less funny or more anti-British than some of the comedians on the BBC.

It was the language. Mr Blunt said: “We recognise that arts activities can play a valuable role in helping offenders to address issues such as communication problems and low self-esteem and enabling them to engage in programmes that address their offending behaviour.”

If I was in charge of the Tory party I would make using the phrase “low self-esteem” an immediate sacking offence, and “criminalise young people” worthy of at least a written warning.

You simply cannot win an argument if you accept the language and terms of the opposition, because by doing so you accept the false premises on which those arguments rests, and without which they crumble. It seems that on crime, at least, the Conservative strategy is now preemptive surrender.